Although I started using and recommending Constant Contact from just about the time they opened their doors in 1995, I know why many people avoid marketing with email – or don’t do as much with it as they should.

And even though email marketing has the highest ROI of virtually any marketing channel (20x higher than direct mail), and is the best way to communicate with up to 500 of your closest friends for the impossibly low price of $15 per month, I understand your hesitation.

I know because I have gotten scores of clients up and running with email marketing over the years.

And Constant Contact knows because they’ve helped their customers face and overcome the same 3 hurdles tens of thousands of times.

Let’s face it, unless they already know your company’s name, local buyers of your product or service can’t possibly find you when they are searching for what you do online. Even if you have a web site.

This is a big problem because thousands of local buyers are searching for immediate solutions to their needs everyday on their computers, smartphones and tablet devices.

They’re not finding you so they’re buying from your competitors, costing you thousands in sales every month.

Here’s what you will learn:

How search engines work.

What you’re actually seeing when looking at search results.

And how Google decides whether your site or your competitor’s site is going to appear on the first page.

Then Frank shows you the difference between what you see on a web page versus what Google sees and how that determines who ends up on page one.

Frank talks about the powerful opportunities available when you focus your search optimization efforts on local buyers.

And he does a number of live search demonstrations which prove his techniques work.

Frank Felker of The Customer Factory Named Authorized Local Expert in Washington, DC area by Leading Online Marketing Company

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Frank Felker Selected as Constant Contact Authorized Local Expert

Old Town Alexandria marketing expert to help small businesses and non-profits apply the power of online marketing to grow their organizations.

ALEXANDRIA, VA December 11, 2012

Frank Felker, Founder and President of The Customer Factory, has been selected as an Authorized Local Expert by Constant Contact®, Inc., the trusted marketing advisor to more than half a million small organizations worldwide.

As an Authorized Local Expert, Felker will offer training seminars on best practices in online marketing in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

“We are thrilled to have Frank Felker as part of the Authorized Local Experts program,” said Catherine Kniker, Vice President of Local Success at Constant Contact.

Daily Deal sites can be a very powerful marketing medium for some businesses.

They can also be an utter disaster if the merchant hasn’t fully thought through his strategy and tactics for handling the rush and converting the maximum number of one-time customers into long-term clients; sources of ongoing repeat and referral business.

Have you ever wondered why Google has put so much time, money and promotional effort into Android, the smart phone operating system that they give away for free?

Unlike Apple with its iPhone, Google doesn’t sell smart phone hardware, though they will, once their Motorola purchase closes. There is no way they can profit directly from the sale of Android-powered phones. So what’s all the fuss about?

The fuss has to do with the unique relationship we humans have with our smart phones. We love them. We interact with them constantly, texting, surfing, mailing, playing, paying, watching, listening and, occasionally, calling. When we’re not slobbering all over them we’re sure to always keep them close at hand – even when we’re asleep.

From a marketer’s perspective there has never been a medium like the smart phone to communicate your messages through.

Every business owner can benefit from a strong set of sales skills but very few have them.

In this workshop I combine my 30+ years as an entrepreneur and sales professional to teach business owners how to think, act and close like a professional salesperson.

Drawing from lessons outlined in my 2004 book, The Greatest Job You Never Thought Of, I explain how, in spite of my many years as the owner of a successful business, I never really learned what sales was all about until I was forced to succeed as a commission-only salesman for a home improvement company.

That company provided extensive sales training and showed me how a sales-focused organization operates. They also gave me the opportunity to earn as much as $20,000 per month if I was willing to work for it.

In this workshop I dispel some myths and communicate some truths about sales while also sharing real, actionable information that any business owner can use to increase their company’s sales almost immediately.

I first presented this workshop yesterday at Connect113 in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, where it was very well received. If you’d like to have me present it to your business group, please give me a call at 703-348-7390.

In this excerpt from Radio Free Enterprise you’ll hear from Billy Winburn, Co-Founder of Connect113, a coworking facility in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Billy and I discuss a wide range of topics that should be of interest to any home-based business owner who’s feeling a little cramped by trying to run a home and a business out of the same building. Not only are your kids, pets and spouse driving you crazy with their constant interruptions, you’re also driving them crazy by working so hard to ignore them.

You probably think you can’t afford something like Connect113, but when you look at what you’re already spending everyday and all the benefits you’ll get, you’ll begin to wonder why you haven’t done something like this sooner.

Give a listen and see what you think.

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Every June, Apple holds their World Wide Developers’ Conference in San Francisco. In years past the focus was entirely on their Macintosh personal computer line, the Mac operating system and software being developed for it.

In more recent years the focus has been almost entirely on the iPhone and the apps being developed for it. This year both platforms were featured, as was an interesting melding of the two.

As a long-time Apple customer (1985) and follower of all things related to online marketing and commerce for small business owners, I watched the video of the WWDC Keynote Address with great interest and came away much more impressed than many members of the tech press seem to be.

Unlike many other observers, I believe that this year’s WWDC represents a watershed moment in online interaction and marketing that will impact small business for many years to come.

The primary complaint most mainstream tech reporters have expressed regarding the varied announcements at this year’s WWDC is that none of the “innovations” represented anything new. They were all ideas that had been around for years. Ideas like cloud storage of data, syncing mobile phones over the air, an online PC software marketplace and so forth.

As outlined in the article / interview, Blippar faces the usual challenge of widespread adoption that any new technology must overcome. In their case, part of that challenge includes persuading large numbers of people to download the requisite app to their phone.

But there are a couple of other significant hurdles that I foresee. For example, while QR Codes are ugly, their presence on a print piece or elsewhere is immediately obvious. How does the consumer know they are seeing an ad that is Blippar-enhanced and is thus signaled that he/she should pull out their smart phone for an enhanced experience?

Also, the applications shown in the demo video will require large budgets and high talent levels to pull off. One thing I like about QR Codes is that they just present simple data or direct the viewer to a landing page which can be easily and/or inexpensively produced, making them more applicable to small and medium-sized businesses of the kind that I support.

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The Customer Factory provides marketing training, classes, seminars, workshops, courses and classes to small business owners in the United States, Canada, Central America,South America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and New Zealand. We offer online marketing training, live marketing training and small business marketing consulting.